@andreworlowski: Google’s ‘adblocker’ is all about taking back control

The world’s biggest digital advertising company Google is reportedly building an ad-blocker into Chrome – and it’s already attracted the attention of Europe’s most important competition regulator.

The WSJclaimed the functionality could arrive in both desktop and mobile versions of Chrome, although a final decision on deploying the ad-killer has yet to be made.

Why would a company that has made such huge profits from advertising – almost 90 per cent of Google’s $89.4bn revenue last year came from advertising – seek to block users from seeing ads?

It’s all about control.

By maintaining its own “blocker”, Google would seize the initiative from third-party whitelists, and have a greater say in which ads were acceptable. In effect, Google would become the gatekeeper, the arbiter of taste, diminishing the role of Eyeo, which markets Adblock Plus.